CANADIAN DIRECTOR, JONATHAN HOLIFF, WINS "ORSON WELLS AWARD" AT TIBURON INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
Win makes 4 for “My Father and The Man In Black” in April--9 since premiere. Canadian broadcast premiere on August 24
WATH THE TRAILER:
TORONTO: Before there was Johnny and June, there was Johnny and Saul.
Canadian Saul Holiff put Johnny Cash together with June Carter--but you won't find his story in "Walk The Line."
A favorite on this year’s international film festival circuit (winning competitions in Edinburgh and Hamburg) is the Canadian-produced story of the man behind The Man In Black--longtime manager, Saul Holiff. The film features the first new information about the music legend since well before his death--10 years ago this year—and it’s told in Johnny's and Saul's own voices!
Six years in the making, this unauthorized look at Johnny Cash, through the eyes of his manager, is driven entirely by newly-discovered audio diaries, letters and telephone calls recorded by Holiff and Cash in the sixties and seventies. This is not a "talking heads" documentary.
And this is no ordinary music documentary either. The 35MM feature film was written and directed by Saul’s son, Jonathan Holiff. Father and son were estranged for 20 years when Holiff Sr. committed suicide in 2005--without leaving a note.
An intense personal adventure with universal themes, that happens to feature one of 20th-century music's greatest icons, "My Father and The Man In Black" tells the inside story of 'bad boy' Johnny Cash, his talented but troubled manager, Saul Holiff, and a son searching for his father in the shadow of a legend.
For the first time we have eyewitness contemporaneous accounts--in their own voices--about what really happened to Johnny and Saul in the 1960s--a decade the singer admitted he could not remember--as well as the early 1970s when Cash was "born again" (the ending missing from “Walk The Line”).
According to Cash historian, Mark Stielper, "Holiff took on the role of mentor, alternately cajoling and castigating his charge as they careened through the 1960s. Holiff became Cash's protector and tormentor, father and brother. Their disputes were frequent; their victories pulled from the jaws of defeat."
Saul Holiff handled the bookings and the no-shows, the divorce and the marriage, the arrests and the trials. He was there for the absolute worst of times. Holiff was also there for the best of times: "Johnny Cash At Folsom Prison," "A Boy Named Sue," and Cash's hit television series. But in 1973, at the zenith of Cash's career, Holiff quit. And until now, no one knew why.
How did the serious-minded Jew from Canada get hooked up with the wild Southern Baptist? Why had Saul quit when Johnny was on top? And why did Jonathan’s father take his own life and not leave a note? These are just some of the questions explored in the film.
Jonathan returned home to help his mother deal with Saul's belongings.
That's when he discovered his father's storage locker. Inside were hundreds of letters, many hand-written, between Saul, Johnny, and June--and 60 hours of personal audio diaries Saul recorded from the early 1960s until shortly before his death. Saul taped his telephone calls with Johnny too!
Saul detailed their experiences-as they happened--during the singer's darkest days, through his meteoric rise to stardom, and finally during their shocking break-up.
“My Father and The Man In Black” weaves together their letters and phone calls, and Holiff's own audio diary, to tell the story as it should be told--by the men who lived it. And what a fascinating story they tell.
Canadian producer New Chapter Productions and foreign sales agent, WIDE HOUSE (Paris), announced their first theatrical distribution deal with Ballpark Film Distributors for release this summer in the UK and Ireland.
Rogers Broadcasting Limited will have the Canadian national broadcast premiere on August 24th on its CityTv network.